Building a highly accurate digital twin of the Earth

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Destination Earth

Destination Earth is a flagship initiative of the European Commission to develop a highly-accurate digital model of the Earth (a digital twin of the Earth) to model, monitor and simulate natural phenomena, hazards and the related human activities. These groundbreaking features assist users in designing accurate and actionable adaptation strategies and mitigation measures.

DestinE unlocks the potential of digital modelling of the Earth system at a level that represents a real breakthrough in terms of accuracy, local detail, access-to-information speed and interactivity.

By pushing the limits of computing and climate sciences, DestinE is an essential pillar of the European Commission’s efforts towards the Green Deal and Digital Strategy.

How DestinE will be used

DestinE will support tackling complex environmental challenges to:

  • monitor and simulate the Earth’s system developments (land, marine, atmosphere, biosphere) and human interventions;
  • anticipate environmental disasters and resultant socio-economic crises to save lives and avoid large economic downturns;
  • enable the development and testing of scenarios for ever more sustainable development.

DestinE Platform

Access the unique ecosystem of services
and leverage the power of Destination Earth.

Destination Earth System

DestinE will allow users to access thematic information, services, models, scenarios, simulations, forecasts and visualisations.
The main components of the DestinE system are:

DestinE Core Service visual

DestinE Platform

The platform will provide evidence-based decision-making tools, applications and services, based on an open, flexible, and secure cloud-based computing infrastructure.

Data Lake

Data Lake

The data lake will bring together data from ESA, EUMETSAT, ECMWF as well as from Copernicus, and many other diverse sources, with new data from the Digital Twins. It will allow discovery and data access as well as big data processing in the cloud.

Digital twins

Digital Twins and Digital Twin Engine

DestinE is creating several digital replicas covering different aspects of the Earth system and based on state-of-the-art simulations and observations. ECMWF is implementing the Digital Twin Engine, the complex software and data services needed for Earth System digital replicas, as well as the first two digital twins; Climate Change Adaptation, which will provide multidecadal simulations, and the Weather-induced Extremes twin, with both high-resolution forecasts and on-demand simulations.

DestinE Timeline

DestinE will be developed through the following key milestones:

2022
Official Launch
2022

Official launch event of the initiative following the signing of the Contribution Agreements earlier in 2021.

By 2023
Development
By 2023

Development of the main components begins.

By 2024
Implementation
By 2024

All the components of the system (DestinE Platform, Data Lake, Digital Twin Engine) have been developed. The DestinE Platform and Data Lake will be transferred into operation. Demonstration of the first two digital twins on Weather-Induced Extremes and Climate Change Adaptation and the open core platform.

By 2026
Enhancement
By 2026

Further enhancement of the DestinE system and integration of additional digital twins and related services.

By 2030
Full Earth Replica
By 2030

A "full" digital replica of the Earth

Who are DestinE’s Partners

European Commission

European Commission

Leads and coordinates the implementation efforts among a core group of leading European organisations which will be responsible for developing the main elements of the initiative.

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ECMWF is the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts

European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts ECMWF

Responsible for the creation of the first two digital twins; Climate Adaptation and Weather-induced Extremes, as well as the creation of the Digital Twin Engine.

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European Space Agency

The European Space Agency ESA

Responsible for the DestinE Open Core Service Platform, the user entry to the DestinE System. Based on a multi-cloud infrastructure, the platform will provide access to data, applications and services.

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EUMETSAT is the European operational satellite agency for monitoring weather, climate and the environment from space

European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites

Responsible for the DestinE Data Lake : built from geographically distributed physical elements, offering discovery & data access to a large data portfolio (Digital Twins data and more) and big data processing near data.

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